Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall says that he can see ins and outs in the squad for the January transfer window. The Gunners play away at Tottenham tomorrow before a four week winter break. The squad will reconvene in early January for a training camp in Portugal with friendlies against Frankfurt and Feyenoord.
The Gunners are at the 25 player registration limit in the squad and would need to move players on before they can add. Arseblog News asked Eidevall whether the club would be active in the window. Gio could not be registered due to the 25 player squad limit and a couple of loan moves fell through in the summer, that is expected to be rectified in January.
“I won’t comment on any individuals, the squad is not permanent and I can see us having both players in and out in January.” Arseblog News understands a right-back is likely to arrive with Laura Wienroither still recovering from an ACL injury. Katie McCabe playing there in recent weeks.
Eidevall said earlier in his press conference that having a bigger squad this season has led to both a better injury record and a higher intensity in training.
“Competition drives intensity so when you have a squad that has a lot of competition for the spots that is going to drive intensity in a good way.
“It also means you don’t become that fragile if you do pick up a minor injury. You still have cover. In a thinner squad that quickly goes into a downward spiral and you pick up a smaller injury, so you load less, you train less, you become less able to handle load in the future.
“That is not a good spiral, you want to do the opposite where you are able to train better and with more intensity and that preps the team so they can develop and become stronger during the season. That comes to quality and quantity.
“You need numbers but then you need quality otherwise you don’t play at a tempo and have the competition and that has been a main driver from a training culture perspective.”
Interesting that Jonas can see ins and outs. Apart from loan deals for Kat Kuhl or Gio (who is not registered anyway) it is difficult to see who would leave to allow someone else to come in. We must find a right back but would KK be sacrificed to allow that position to be backed up? Everyone else is a definite first teamer or injured. Maybe a reshuffle of goal keepers is the only other area where some deals could happen?
The remarks from JE about the negative loading spiral when you start off with a minor injury – that is interesting information. If we get a RB, I reckon it’ll be Hurtig de-registered for the rest of the season while she rebuilds her fitness. We would then have two actual RBs that we could rotate in Maritz and the new recruit, and Foord, McCabe and maybe Lacasse rotating at left wing. Goalkeeper might come in, I suppose, because Zinsberger is definitely off in the summer (family reasons) and we could send Williams out on loan in order to register and… Read more »
Mary Earps on a 5 year deal? 🙂
With Manu probably leaving, Mary Earps would be an upgrade, but an expensive one. How did everyone except Leicester overlook Janina Leitzig, who on current form is the best goalkeeper in the WSL?